But Enid, though she opened her lips, found that she could not speak.

Hardly knowing what she was doing, she sat down again.

And, after what seemed to the owner of the attractive, candle-lit room an awful silence, Mrs.Piper went on, speaking now in quite a different tone--easy, confidential, and with a touch of wheedling good nature in it.
"Thanks to your late gentleman, Piper knows all about dogs, and all 'e requires, Modam, to set 'im up as a dogfancier, so to speak, is a moderate bit o' money.

As 'e says 'imself, five hundred pound would do it easy.

If I may make so bold, that's what reely brought me 'ere, Mrs.
Crofton.